Chapter 5 Betrothed To The Alpha King

• He hugs me so tightly, I almost can’t breathe; his arms are rock hard at my back. Leaning down close, he says softly, “I was so afraid you wouldn’t come back.”
• Alarm bells go off in my mind. I step back from him and tilt my head, pretending to check my immovable hairdo to avoid looking him in the eye.
• “You’ve been gone for five years,” he says, suddenly pragmatic. “You might not feel the same way toward me that you did before you left.”
• How do you know what I felt for you? I almost snap.
• My memory drifts back to the day he knocked on my bedroom door, startling me with his presence in my house, startling me more with the announcement that my father signed a mating pact. Ashton and I barely knew each other; though we were both educated at the private academy all children of the Toronto pack attend, we weren’t friends. We barely spoke to each other before he approached my father.
• To this day, I’m still not sure what Ashton truly sought from our engagement. Maybe it was a rash decision made under the influence of a young, unrequited crush. He wanted a job from my father, so maybe Ashton thought a marriage would secure that position for him. Whatever the reason, I barely know this man standing in front of me, behaving like we’re long-separated lovers.
• My feelings for him haven’t changed. Because they never existed in the first place.
• “I thought you would have called off the mating pact by now,” I say, praying “hope” doesn’t replace a crucial word as I speak.
• “Never.” He shakes his head firmly and takes my hand, lacing our fingers together.
• Somehow, in the five years that I’ve been gone, completely cut off from communication with the pack, I’ve been involved in a grand romance with my fiancé, a man I barely know.
• “I appreciate that.” What else is there to say? “My mother would be humiliated.”
• “I wouldn’t do anything to embarrass your family. When they’ve already been through so much.” He cuts himself off and his pained expression stops just short of a wince.
• “It’s all right,” I reassure him. It’s not all right; I don’t like to be reminded that I’m a black sheep in a den of wolves. “I don’t want to do anything to embarrass them, either.”
• And I realize too late, as he puts his arm around my waist, that he could take that as a declaration that I won’t be breaking our engagement. That I will accept the transformation and stay with the pack for the rest of my life. I might as well have sworn fealty to him, with that remark.
• He leads me toward the dance floor, saying, “Come. We never had a chance to make our debut properly.”
• I’ve been home fewer than twenty-four hours and I’m already right back to the world I left behind. All I did by leaving was delay the inevitable. I was a fool for thinking I would ever truly leave the pack.
• My stomach roils as Ashton leads me onto the dance floor, where couples float and twirl to a waltz from a string quartet. I feel eyes on us from all the other pairs; he’s handsome, he’s suave, and he dances with such grace it extends to me. I tell myself that’s why everyone is staring, why I see so many smug faces and tight-lipped whispers happening all around us.
• But I’m not optimistic enough to believe it. They see Baily Dixon, who exploited an ancient rule to leave her pack. Who ran out on a mating pact, who rejected the transformation and in doing so made her family a subject of gossip and derision. They’re all wondering what I’ll do next to fuck up.
• I want to vomit, and the twirling of the waltz doesn’t help. I close my eyes and hold tightly to Ashton’s shoulder, praying for the music to finish. Mercifully, it does, and we step apart to politely applaud the quartet.
• I know an exit when I see one. I turn to Ashton to tell him I need to go out for some air, but before I can speak, I see the king striding toward me, his mouth bent in a mildly crooked smile.
• He stops in front of us and inclines his head toward me. “Miss Dixon.”
• He knows my name. Not only that, but he doesn’t even acknowledge Ashton standing beside me.
• “Pack Leader,” I whisper, curtseying.
• I keep my eyes downcast and see his hand, with the heavy royal signet ring, reaching for my own. He’s the king. I let him take it and rise, praying my palm isn’t as sweaty as I fear. The strings start up a tango.
• He doesn’t release my hand. “Will you honor me with a dance?”